This week's car listening? Husker Du's The Living End. It was their final album, recorded live during their final tour. It's stunning. I forgot how good it was.

Whenever I've gotten into the discussion of greatest live shows ever, quite a few spring to mind, including certain shows with groups like The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Horace Tapscott, B.B. King, Drive Like Jehu, Black Flag, this one day with Pharoah Sanders, Billy Higgins, Juno Lewis, and a mostly uknown pianist and bassist; and the night that I saw Sonic Youth, Husker Du, and Firehose at the Fillmore in SF. It was right when Husker Du were really starting to become widely known; I think they'd just released Candy Apple Grey and I know this was just before Sonic Youth released Sister. I'm thinking it was around 89. Either one of those bands alone--as they played that night--would have ranked as one of the greatest shows ever, but the two of them together was kind of like dying and going straight to heaven.

The Living End accurately captures the white hot intensity this band had on stage. It's always been extraordinary to me how a trio could have such a giant sound. Sheets of it...sheets of sound not so much washing over you as roaring through you, burnished with tremendously beautiful and at once shockingly simple melodic vocal lines. If you've read my recent reviews of rock bands du jour, you'll know what I'm comparing this to when I say that this simple trio--bereft of any theatrics, gimmicks, adornment, or schtick of any kind--would leave these other bands a quivering wreck of pointlessness.

Where are all the Emo® kids on this one? Husker Du were the real thing, and they deserved all the acclaim they got. I don't actually know if I'd recommend the live album ahead of some of their studio landmarks, such as Zen Arcade or Candy Apple Grey or New Day Rising (or if you're an old crusty like me, even further back to Land Speed Record, but that's not the stuff that made them great; it set the stage, but they weren't There yet), but you wouldn't be making a mistake if you did decide to start there.

UPDATE: Wow was I wrong on the dates. The Living End was released in 1987, and that was their last tour, so I guess that Sonic Youth/Husker Du show was well before that, and Husker Du must have had most of their records out at that point. Maybe the show was in 1986? I'm useless with dates.

Okay, depending on what month Sister was released in, it was either 1986 or late 1985, as the album wasn't out yet at the time of that show.